Michelangelo Signorile

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Michelangelo Signorile, on the cover of his book "Hitting Hard".

Michelangelo Signorile is a gay American writer and a radio host.

Signorile is noted for his various books and articles on gay and lesbian politics, and is an outspoken supporter of gay rights. Signorile's seminal book Queer in America explored the negative effects of the LGBT closet, and provided one of the first intellectual justifications for the practice of outing public officials or their relatives as a political / journalistic tactic.

His magazine articles, newspaper columns and website champion the cause of gay rights. In particular, he has advocated that gay Americans come out, and has talked about the deleterious effects of the closet both on the closeted individual and on society as a whole. Signorile has been a long-time champion of the right to marriage for same-sex couples.

Currently, Signorile hosts a radio show, The Michelangelo Signorile Show, which can be heard exclusively on Sirius Satellite Radio's OutQ channel.

His surname is pronounced "seen-yoh-RILL-ee."

He recently appeared on the O'Reilly Factor where the conservative host told him that if gays want to marry then polygamists should be able to too. Signorile said the polygamy argument was "blown up".

[edit] Biography

Signorile spent his early childhood in the 1960s and 1970s in Brooklyn and Staten Island. He attended the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, where he majored in journalism.

A former publicist, Signorile became a gay activist in the late 1980s and ran the media committee of ACT UP in New York. He was also a cofounder of OutWeek magazine. He has also been a contributor and an editor at The Advocate.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Signorile created much controversy over the practice of outing. Among those Signorile has outed include billionaire Malcolm Forbes, the journalist Pete Williams, and the son of conservative political activist Phyllis Schlafly.